Day one

All went exactly to plan and we set off in plenty time to put bobs car in the flying scot car park ,through the revamped edinb airport security with plenty time for a witherspoons breakfast and two pints of real ale before our 06:10 flight, it was an un eventful easly jet flight whic basically me and cammy slept 90% off the two hour flight bob had very kindly made a couple of sandwiches so that was great to have just before landing ,put the watch forward one hour and had a beer while we waited on our airport transfer mini bus by alpybus 

   Yet again me and cammy slept most if the bus journey from geneva to Chamonix ,cammy said he never got any sleep after the funeral he was at and I was out with Davy Stephens for beer in the afternoon an dandy mac at night so it all took its toll 

     Once in Chamonix the apartment wasn't ready so we put our bags into store and went for a stroll round town which became a bar lunch atchambre Neuf which was an excellent lunch and could be a good bar at night ! We all had Swedish meatballs and helped ourselves to the salad bar 

       Once into the apartment at 15:30 we didn't even unpack we just all crashed out for a sleep for over two hours ,then went for our skis we nearly got big off piste skis because Ali asked for off piste skis as we are planning to do the valley blanch but then the shop assistant said we can change skis the day we choose to do it if it's available to do ! The situation seems to be its doable but guides are only taking groups of two because the ridge sections will require us roped up and you don't want anymore than four on the one rope ,this will raise the costs considerably if we get a chance to do it  ,cammy endy up with twin headed skis which I've never tried before so I'm looking forward to finding out how he gets on with them tomorrow 

       Cammy went for a shower while me bob and Ali went to the local spar for beers and snacks off the apartment , it was nearly €81.36 which is £68 and we didn't get a lot of stuff I think the French alps are going to be expensive 

Pre-ski, an outsiders view.

(Written by Jen)

Well Kenny's been dashing about like a bee on speed today getting everything ready for the big trip tomorrow. Quick dash into town in the handsome new red polo for some travel essentials.

Euros, done

Gaviscon, done

Condiments (no salt required), done

Charger for video camera (for erotic ski-themed home videos) done

A bit of frantic run-around-the-house packing followed, with a couple of mugs of coffee to fuel the mania. Once the packing is complete it'll be time to get into proper holiday mode with a nice bar lunch and some beers with old friends.The beers will have to finish reasonably early, however, because Captain Bob is collecting the boys at 03.30hrs for a 6am flight! They're abandoning Bobster's car there for the week, so hopefully it won't be ravaged by raccoons or eagles while they're away. It's always a risk around these parts.

I'm sure the 4 of them will be very well behaved this week, I can't imagine they'll be having more than 2 or 3 beers a night, knowing them as I do. They'll come back all refreshed and re-energised. Wink.

Here we go !

It's just under a year since the last ski holiday blog , but it's that happy time again to head to the alps for a week of snow fun ! This year Ali chose our destination way back in May. Ali said he has wanting to ski the Valle Blanche ( possibly the most famous off piste route in Europe ) for years and now feels he is good enough and fit enough to ski it ,it's on his bucket list and as he is heading for his mid fifties he is concerned he may never get the chance again ! It's up to you if you think mid fifties is old or not but I think my mates got a few good year in him yet 

          So Chamonix, it was decided.we have been there together before; me Ali and bob went to Chamonix 6years ago. This time cammy is joining us. He has been away all day today (Friday ) at his friends funeral his mate Rab had a long battle with cancer which unfortunately he lost on Sunday , cammy wanted to go home after the funeral,so hopefully he will be rested and ready for his holiday when he gets his 03:15 wake up call ! 

      I've been out for beers with my bro , Davey Stephens , and Andy Mac and TBH could do with a few more hours sleep but I'm packed ! ( I hope ) Ali and e are paying for extra luggage this year for our ski boots and helmets , helmets are a big issue and talking point this year Ali has been wearing a helmet this past few yeArs me and bob are wearing a helmet for the first time ,cammy refuses point blank to wear one 

Home in bonnie Scotland

A fantastic week away 3 good mates off to the alpine slopes together it couldn't fail to be a good holiday. but I would like emphasise just how good it was we had one day with really bad weather but all in all very good conditions. the resort had excellent access to 650km of piste that's around 400 miles ! Due to weather and the fact we wanted to remain a tight knit small group when stu was with us for 4 days meant we never got to explore anywhere near as many off the slopes as we were capable off BUT objective achieved we had some cracking runs and all improved our techniques. It was a shame the Dixie micks finished midweek they were an excellent band but we loved our time in Dixie's bar even when the band weren't playing. the bar has a replacement band lined up for the next batch of skiers to enjoy. there are other good bars around town we just couldn't visit them all ! the food was excellent and we had some great beers ,but it was expensive to eat and drink out ! We did do plenty of our own cooking and had some beers in our retro apartment so we had a good balance of budget and enjoy ourselves.
The ski week holiday is always my most expensive week of the year but I do love it and think its worth it all in all the holiday cost .remembering we booked all of it individually,flights were around £130, apartment was £110, ski pass was £180, ski hire about £80 and transfers £60 a grand total of £560, food and drink for the week was £440, a massive saving from crystal who would have been £920 plus beers so all in all individually our week in morzine cost us around £1000each
Our flight home was excellent we were very lucky for some reason the air hostess singled the 3of us out to get a window seat each at the emergency exits. she said she wanted people she felt capable of opening the doors in an emergency. so not only did each of us get leg room to the front but had two empty seats beside us to stretch out along . I had a beer and halved a sandwich with bob stretched myself out and read the final few pages of an excellent book.ultra marathon man by dean karnazes i would highly recommend it a fantastic read much better than my blog ! But hopefully you have enjoyed it and noticed the improvement in style as the week and the time I had to do it in improved

Day 8 the journey home

We were all up on time and had the last of our coffee and muesli finished packing showered tidied the apartment and out for 09:20. Ali had to walk to the office to drop of the apartment keys and the change in the weather from yesterday was incredible there was a big flurry of snow outside. All the trees and rooftops were yet again coated in lovely clean white snow (beautiful I so wish Scotland could get weather like this every year ) while me and bob waited on Ali dropping of the apartment keys we decided I would stay with the bags and bob would go to the shop get some juice and a snack for the bus to geneva. Skiidygonzales were picking us up at 09:40
The journey from morzine to geneva airport was scenic and pleasantly short we were looking for the left luggage area at 11am. It was £7 each to leave our luggage at the airport we paid it because we couldn't check in our bags until 17:40 and we wanted to head out to CERN .getting the transport information took a lot longer than it should and we had conflicting information we ended up buying 3all day public transport tickets for the geneva area which was €18 for the 3 of us. A later flight today and no skiing was going to be a costly day.especially when we were all running out of euros and not wishing-to use a cash-line abroad again but we were all looking forward to visiting CERN. I wanted a bottle of Gatorade it was 3.80franks I had €5 in coins the shop wouldn't except coins only notes so I just told her to keep it and done without. I remember this from the last time 6year ago when I was in Chamonix then spent two days in geneva after my ski week. The Swiss don't want the euro most places except it in notes only at a rubbish exchange rate then give you the change back in Swiss franks( these coins are no good to you outside of Switzerland ). We got on a bus to a shopping area just on the outskirts of the airport and then boarded a tram to CERN. The visitor centre was fantastic we all really enjoyed it and would have loved to have got underground to see the large hadron collider itself. but you need to book a tour for that the visitor centre would have to do and it was excellent our heads were still puzzling the laws of physics and the mysteries of the universe when we left a few hours later.
We took the tram right back into the main train station at the centre of geneva as we still had plenty time to kill before our flight. I showed bob and Ali at the back of the main train station is an old double decker bus that's came from falkirk . It has the type of destination board at the front that the conductor would turn a handle at each stop to change for the next destination the last time I was here it showed falkirk this time it was reading Bonnybridge. It's a short walk from the train station to lake geneva so we strolled down and took a few photos at the water front unfortunately for bob and Ali the big fountain was off I have seen it before and it is a nice sight. Ali wanted lunch so we strolled to the big shopping area and after a bit of window shopping decided we would probably be best just to opt for a MacDonald I'm normally against this uncultured bow to the multi conglomerates but geneva was proving expensive. There is a web site somewhere that gauges the cost of living in each country by the amount that country charges for a Big Mac I do believe this to be an accurate method of gauging how expensive a country is to visit. Our 3meals burgers chips and drinks came to 42.50 swiss franks which was £31.85 so ask yourself how much three Mcdonald meals would be in Scotland ! We walked from there back to the station and had a beer at a bar across the road roughly £6 a pint the black bulls prices no longer seem so bad !
We decided to get the direct train from the main train station right back into the middle of the airport there are trains very regularly and it's a quick journey about 10 mins and got a beer to watch a bit of the rugby while waiting on being able to check in
We got checked in and through security and I'm finishing off today's blog with 2hrs to kill before our flight home. Bobs dad Roddy is picking us up at Edinburgh airport around 10:15ish so I shall Finnish the blog tomorrow with today and yesterday's pictures on it. wifi at the airport is free for an hour but very slow so I will not even attempt uploading my pics to the iPad tonight here

Day7 our last day on the slopes

We were all up fresh from a long nights sleep, only to discover the weather was ghastly ! Our last day on the alpine slopes until next year was looking miserable ,there was a lot of low cloud the rain was pouring down with a fair wind pushing it hard at an angle ,the normally nice view from our balcony became a miserable outlook onto a dull wet grey day.
We had our breakfast checked the weather report (it was gonna be like this all day ) so we decided no point sitting around reading all day on our last day ,we felt we should give it a go and headed out around 10:30 to collect our skis and head up .its very sad to see this beautiful snow that had covered the lovely town of morzine when we arrived ,was almost being washed away in front of us as we walked through the town all the roofs where pouring water from the gutters and the streets were mini streams of what was once beautiful soft white snow but now just cold running water.
Once we collected our skis we had a look around the valleys to see which area was likely to be least dull and perhaps slightly sheltered from the wind ,the le get area looked about the best of a bad bunch ,I had wanted to sit in the fun train and go up the super morzine bubble cars to the slopes at that side of the valley but that was not an option today, it was totally covered in low cloud and the wind and rain were hitting that side of the valley, so we went up the le pleney cars then straight up the nearest chairlift from there in the hope that hight would bring snow instead of rain (it didn't ) the first slope we went down was an eye opener the snow was mush and acted like a brake when you tried to make a turn the wind and rain lashed against us we made our way down to the next chairlift, as we huddled together on the 3rd chairlift of the day hoods up drips of rain dropping of our clothing it became obvious that even with our high spec outdoor clothing we would all eventually get very cold and wet, the next couple of red runs were surprisingly pleasant to ski on if it wasn't for the driving rain. The final straw came when alistairs sallopettes started leaking at the groin and his already cold damp bum started to get water running down the inside of his leg, and that was it! We skied all the way back down to morzine over the long green bridge one last time and shook wet cold gloved hands at the bottom to mark the end of our ski'ing for 2013.
The town was busy with other skiers who had obviously done the same as us, it was too early for our usual bars so we opted for a restaurant for lunch and a few beers, Ali ordered the bacon burger, Bob went for steak and chips I had tartiflette they were all very good sized plates I seriously struggled to finish mine along with dinner we had 3 pints of grolsch €95 all in
Ski'in finished lunch done it was far too early to start on the beer so we opted to get milk and bread from spar and head back to the apartment ,have a snooze ,then get packed ,cook dinner ,clean the apartment,have a shower. Then we can head out for beers early not too worried about getting organised for 09:45 pick up tomorrow morning.

Day 6 into Switzerland

Stuart got up and away for his flight before we got out of bed, a quick shake of the shoulder see you mate shake of hand and he was off to get his flight home to Manchester ,( he did add a photo of us and a cheers for the good times message on Facebook when he got home so that was nice ),he was great fun a welcome addition to the group ,but now the 4became 3again
We had a group discussion over breakfast about wether we should do the Swiss wall or not ! We had a discussions last night in dixies with a girl called amy and her man mat who live out here and they said 3-10 people Die each year on the Swiss wall ,this was enough to set ali's mind into overdrive and he had a nightmare about the wall while sleeping ,SO we made a group decision not to do it .as it turned out ,it was the right decision the rain last night and overnight low temperature turned all the slopes to sheets of glass ,one of those days when you really should be wearing a helmet if you are gonna ski at speed or do anything technically difficult ,only Ali had a helmet on and I often thought throughout the day next year I'm gonna wear a helmet ,but definitely not the right ski conditions for an attempt at the Swiss wall ,
I'm not complaining about the ski conditions it was a beautiful sunny day very windy at the top of lifts and cold but lovely alpine sun ,yesterday afternoons rain and overcast conditions were like Scotland ski weeks , but although the slopes were hard as glass and the unpisted parts very difficult to make a turn .it was a beautiful day ,the first black run that we took down into Switzerland at the steepest part we all wondered how the bloody hell we would manage a turn and slow down when we were sliding down a sheet of glassy ice ,but we just had to man up and go for it ,we had the slope to ourselves until we got to the long blues nearer the lifts
We stopped for lunch at around 13:30 in Switzerland in a place called des portes du soleil ,bob ordered pasta it was very like carbonara made with macaroni ,me and Ali went for the plat du jour which gave us a soup to start with it came in its own terrine and we ladelled it into our bowls with spoonfuls of very garlic croutons , our main course was fillet of fish with baby carrots and peas and instead of chips or potato a heap of boiled barley which was different for me but very tasty.the bill came in Swiss franks ( we only had euros) it was 76.20 Swiss franks which she then converted using her mobile phones calculator to 67 euros which was £59 ,
After dinner we took a lovely nice red run back over the border to France we had the run to ourselves and it was wide and good until it abruptly and unexpectantly turned into a very difficult narrow gorge which had not only been left unpisted it had huge big icy lumps there was a skier stuck whom couldn't work out how he was gonna navigate this section ,we had to just go past him
The rest of the runs were lovely and the weather stayed sunny and nice we skied straight through the purpose built ski resort town of avoriaz and had plenty time to ski all the way home to morzine ,
By now we had a routine going we took our skis back to the hire shop then had a€3.50 pint of grolsch at the street cafe (today they had a cabaret singer doing her stuff )we then bought milk and bread for the apartment and walked round to dixies for a bit of après ski, it was nice in dixies we got the big bench in front of the log fire and stayed longer and had more beers than usual ,by the time we got back to the apartment and had dinner, I said I don't think we have time for a power snooze lads I was outvoted they jumped into their beds and said they had set alarms .i sat up 5minuets longer but decided to join them the next thing I woke up in my bunk it was 03:00